


Curly: 1975

by Sheffield



Series: Young Sandburg [3]
Category: The Sentinel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-12-25
Updated: 2014-12-25
Packaged: 2018-03-03 13:24:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,478
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2852360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sheffield/pseuds/Sheffield
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I'm enormously grateful to Banbury for sending me copies of the complete Young Sandburg series, after I'd lost the originals of a couple of them.   This is the first in the series: Blair is five.  Sorry, five and a quarter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Curly: 1975

Blair Sandburg was five and a quarter years old and he knew lots of things. Like, grown ups and big kids often made silly noises when they saw him. He was, in his opinion, perfectly respectably dressed. He was wearing a pair of Bermuda shorts he'd found in the commune's laundry that morning and he'd used the cord off his dressing gown to tie them tight round his waist and make sure they stayed up. He'd put on his favourite pink and purple tie-dyed t-shirt, too, and his curly hair was held out of his eyes by a headband, just like a red Indian, only they don't like to be called red Indians. Naomi said he looked great, and Summer said he was very 'spressive.

"Woo hoo!"

"Hey Curly!"

"Hippie!"

The noise level in the vestibule of the Bay City PD building rose several notches as he stepped inside but he ignored it and squinted as his eyes adjusted from the bright sunlight. He quickly found his objective and marched over to the duty sergeant's desk, ignoring the catcalls of the hookers and drunks in the tank, and stood politely waiting for the duty sergeant to take notice of him.

After a few minutes he looked around nervously. It was all taking much longer than he had expected.

"'Scuse me, sir?"

"Beat it, kid," the desk sergeant said. "It's been a long day, and the last thing I need is to spend the rest of the afternoon writing up the disappearance of the Easter Bunny."

"Please, sir," the kid persisted, "I want to report a kidnapping."

The sergeant put down his pen, leaned forwards over his podium and said, "I said beat it, kid. Now scram."

The blue eyes filled with tears. "My Mommy says p'licemen are pigs, but that if you're in trouble then they have to help you. And you HAVE to help me, 'coz I been kidnapped."

"Give the kid a break, McNeice," said a calm voice.

The boy turned to find a pair of eyes level with his own, from a big man who had kind of scrunched down so he could talk to him face to face.

"Hi," the man said. "My name's Ken. And this big guy is called David. What's your name?"

"Blair Sandburg," the boy said decisively, holding out his hand. This was the moment, Blair knew, when you could tell whether adults were taking you seriously, and the blond man didn't disappoint him but solemnly shook hands. The other man, dark hair as curly as Blair's own, looked on and his eyes were kind of crinkled up. Blair checked him out carefully but he didn't seem to be laughing at him, which was good. Maybe he'd found the men for the job.

"McNeice, you gotta remember that we're supposed to be the good guys - right, Blair?" the big guy said.

"Why don't you step into our office, Mr. Sandburg, and we'll take your statement," the nice blond man who'd scrunched down said with calm seriousness. Blair put his hand trustingly into the man's. As they walked away he looked back and saw the curly headed man in deep conversation with the rude man at the desk. The rude man was looking a bit cross, too. Good, the boy thought. He'd found the good guys at last, even if the desk man *was* just a pig.

Soon they were in the big office where Ken and David worked with lots of other pigs - policemen. Blair sat happily on top of the big desk, looking round at the room. This was just what he'd expected. Some of the people at the commune said all pigs - policemen - were horrid but there was a TV in the basement and Blair knew - from Mannix and Ironside and things like that - that policemen, even if they *were* pigs, were supposed to be the good guys. You just sometimes had to look a bit hard to find them, but Blair hadn't found it hard at all.

"So, Mr. Sandburg, how old are you, please?"

The nice blond man was called Ken, he remembered. But he still stifled a giggle when he said carefully "Five and a quarter."

"Five and a quarter? Wow. Big guy," Ken said, writing it down. "And are you married?"

Blair burst into giggles, he couldn't help it. "No, silly. I'm five!"

"I apologize. Now, Blair; where do you live?"

That was a harder one. "Well, me and Naomi were in Pas-a-deeeeee-ny for a while but mostly we're in Summer's commune now."

"A commune? Do you know where it is, Blair?"

"It's by the beach," he said helpfully.

Ken and David looked at each other.

Uh ho, Blair thought. Big people must have some kind of way of talking to each other without talking out loud, he thought, like in the book he and Naomi were reading. They looked at each other and then it was like they knew stuff that they wouldn't tell little kids.

"So tell us about the kidnapping," David said.

"Naomi's my Mommy and she and Summer like to smoke. And they get their smokiestuff from a big man called Pablo. But Pablo said they had to take some bags of sugar to his grocery store for him, 'cause bad people were looking for him and trying to stop him getting any more sugar."

He leaned forwards and gestured to Ken and David to move closer too.

He whispered, "I don't think it was really sugar at all. I think it was something horrible, because Naomi said a bad word. But then Pablo's friend picked me up and said I could go to the zoo with them till Naomi and Summer had taken the sugar to the shop but I didn't want to go and Naomi didn't want me to go either. But Pablo's friend put me into his car and when I kicked him he hit me and then I bit him and he hit me again. So I decided I must'a been kidnapped so I waited till we stopped at the lights and there was lots of people, and I got out of the car and hidded till Pablo's friend had gone. And then I looked and looked but I couldn't find my way back to Summer's place so I came here."

Ken and David were looking at each other again and doing that big people thing. Blair yawned.

"Know what, Blair?" David said, "You did exactly the right thing. I'll tell you what we'll do. There's a nice chair over there. Why don't you sit there and take a nap and we'll go and see if we can sort all this out and fetch your Mommy, OK?"

The chairs were big and squishy, and there were two of them next to each other, and it was awful tiring being kidnapped, after all, so Blair decided he could probably manage a little nap, now that everything was under control. And David's cardigan made a really good blankie. 

"Summer, too?" he remembered to say before he fell asleep.

"Summer too," Ken promised.

When he woke up, Blair found he was in the back of a car with Naomi. "Mommy!" he squealed and dived into her arms. From that safe haven he looked around in wonder. It was dark. There were no lights around except waaaaaay over in the distance. Summer was driving and she and Naomi both looked like they had colds because their noses and eyes were all red.

"Mommy, are you sick?" he said. He had to be careful if Naomi got sick. It was his job to look after her, and sometimes that was hard.

"No sweetie, Mommy is fine. Everything is fine now."

"But where are we? Did Ken and David find you? I was kidnapped!"

"Sshh sweetie. Yes, the policemen found me and Summer, and Pablo and his friends have gone to jail."

"But Mommy! What about Ken and David? I have to tell them 'thank you'! Where are they?"

"Starsky and Hutch? They're just policemen, sweetie, and you know what pigs are like. They don't have time for little boys. Now, come on, snuggle up - we'll be in Vegas before you know it."

The afghan from Summer's place wasn't nearly as good a blankie as David's cardie had been, but he supposed David must have wanted it back But they weren't the piggy kind of cops, he thought sleepily; they were the other kind. "Not pigs: good guys," he muttered. He was going to make his Mommy understand, just as soon as he woke up, it was important...

The big blue eyes lost their struggle to stay open and the curly head burrowed deeper into Naomi's arms and he slept the peaceful sleep of a five and a quarter year old man as he was driven towards the distant lights of Vegas.


End file.
